The Leo Frank Case PhD Thesis Dissertation by Leonard Dinnerstein : Leonard Dinnerstein : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Leonard Dinnerstein (born May 5, 1934) completed his Columbia University Ph.D., Dissertation about the Leo Frank Case in 1966 for the Political Science Department. The central thesis of his dissertation is conspiracies of anti-Semitism were responsible for an innocent Northern Jew, 29-year-old Leo Max Frank, getting convicted on August 25, 1913, for having murdered 13-year-old Mary Anne Phagan on Confederate Memorial Day in 1913. Dinnerstein's dissertation became the species for his book, "The Leo Frank Case", which would go through a number of editions in its evolution beginning in 1968 with the first edition release.

To make his case that Leo Frank was innocent of the crime, one of the more interesting pieces of forensic evidence Dinnerstein posits is that teeth marks on Mary Phagan's neck and should did not match the indenture x-rays of Leo Frank's teeth. This alleged evidence was never presented at the Leo Frank trial or appeals, thus Dinnerstein's underlying suggestion is it was suppressed by the State of Georgia in an effort to railroad Leo Frank because he was Jewish.

Excerpt that discusses the case of Leo Frank and Van Paassen's discovery of photographic evidence, pages 237 and 238:

The Jewish community of Atlanta at that time seemed to live under a cloud. Several years previously one of its members, Leo Frank, had been lynched as he was being transferred from the Fulton Tower Prison in Atlanta to Milledgeville for trial on a charge of having raped and murdered a little girl in his warehouse which stood right opposite the Constitution building. Many Jewish citizens who recalled the lynching were unanimous in assuring me that Frank was innocent of the crime.

I took to reading all the evidence pro and con in the record department at the courthouse. Before long I came upon an envelope containing a sheaf of papers and a number of X-ray photographs showing teeth indentures. The murdered girl had been bitten on the left shoulder and neck before being strangled. But the X-ray photos of the teeth marks on her body did not correspond with Leo Frank’s set of teeth of which several photos were included. If those photos had been published at the time of the murder, as they should have been, the lynching would probably not have taken place.

Though, as I said, the man died several years before, it was not too late, I thought, to rehabilitate his memory and perhaps restore the good name of his family. I showed Clark Howell the evidence establishing Frank’s innocence and asked permission to run a series of articles dealing with the case and especially with the evidence just uncovered. Mr. Howell immediately concurred, but the most prominent Jewish lawyer in the city, Mr. Harry Alexander, whom I consulted with a view to have him present the evidence to the grand jury, demurred. He said Frank had not even been tried. Hence no new trial could be requested. Moreover, the Jewish community in its entirety still felt nervous about the incident. If I wrote the articles old resentments might be stirred up and, who knows, some of the unknown lynchers might recognize themselves as participants in my description of the lynching. It was better, Mr. Alexander thought, to leave sleeping lions alone. Some local rabbis were drawn into the discussion and they actually pleaded with Clark Howell to stop me from reviving interest in the Frank case as this was bound to have evil repercussions on the Jewish community.

That someone had blabbed out of school became quite evident when I received a printed warning saying: "Lay off the Frank case if you want to keep healthy." The unsigned warning was reinforced one night or, rather, early one morning when I was driving home. A large automobile drove up alongside of me and forced me into the track of a fast-moving streetcar coming from the opposite direction. My car was demolished, but I escaped without a scratch....

Analysis

Unfortunately, it was not even possible to X-ray bitemarks on human flesh in 1913 or today, so the whole episode was fraud from the beginning, but became long perpetuated hoaxery at its finest thanks in part to Leonard Dinnerstein, who blandly presents this forensic evidence uncritically as more proof that Leo Frank was framed.

References:

Leo Frank and the American Jewish Community (1968) by Leonard Dinnerstein: http://archive.org/details/LeoFrankAndTheAmericanJewishCommunity

The Leo Frank Case (1966) PhD Dissertation: http://www.archive.org/details/TheLeoFrankCase1966Dissertation

The Leo Frank Case Book (published 1968 and thereafter): http://www.archive.org/details/TheLeoFrankCaseByLeonardDinnerstein

To Number Our Days by Pierre van Paassen (see pages 237, 238 about the Leo Frank case): http://archive.org/details/ToNumberOurDaysByPierreVanPaassen

The Leo Frank Case Georgia Supreme Court Case Records (1,800 pages). http://archive.org/details/leo-frank-georgia-supreme-court-case-records-1913-1914

Other Sources:

Learn about the Leo Frank trial and appeals by Professor Allen Koenigsberg of Brooklyn College: http://www.LeoFrankCase.com

Reviewer: Rob Barnes -

- March 1, 2012
Subject: Very informative dissertation
This dissertation is a good example of dissertation writing. I recommend it as an example of political dissertation.

Identifier:	TheLeoFrankCase1966Dissertation
Mediatype:	texts
Identifier-access:	http://www.archive.org/details/TheLeoFrankCase1966Dissertation
Identifier-ark:	ark:/13960/t4zg7p43k
Ppi:	600
Ocr:	ABBYY FineReader 8.0
Rights:	Not in copyright.

View the book

Resources

The Leo Frank Case PhD Thesis Dissertation by Leonard Dinnerstein (1966)

Description

Write a review
Downloaded 170 times Reviews
Average Rating:

Selected metadata